Aura Rosenberg presents a new series of lenticular prints at Efremidis Gallery that reconnect two sculptures from Lower Manhattan’s Financial District: the late Arturo di Modica’s Charging Bull (1989) and Kristen Visbal’s Fearless Girl (2017). Both began their life as unauthorized sculptures.

Di Modica dropped the bull surreptitiously in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Fearless Girl was commissioned by State Street Global Advisors, an asset management company, who placed her directly before the bull, as if facing it down. This pair of opposing works became wildly popular with tourists, but di Modica eventually won his longrunning battle to move the Fearless Girl away from his bull. As symbols, this pair has the unforeseen potential to flaunt intended meanings; both eliding and surpassing the projections of their creators. Their mutual dynamic is the raw material of dreams—perhaps why officials agreed to separate, and thereby neutralize, them.

Rosenberg's Lenticular prints are unstable, their surface structure allows no fixity. They hold a coupling of images and when viewed these feel as if we are being surrounded. Always touching but never aligned, these two views force a reading in real time. In actuality; the body is engaged and the normal premise of a photograph, of a slicing of reality, is allowed to break out, to dance. When you walk through the space, the images scroll, thumb on the screen they move around you. Throughout the space stands The Missing Souvenir, a large-scale installation of miniaturized Siegessäule sculptures, which the artist produced in collaboration with KW Institute in 2003. Previous to Rosenberg’s iteration, the Berlin monument had never been available as a tourist memento. As a repressed memory, this small sculpture suggests a discordant relationship to official history. The installation creates a field of punctures, an undeniable presence. Berlin looks over its shoulder, tripping over its wrecks. Underneath the stones lies the river, around the corner lies Rosa Luxemburg. The streets of Ernst Reuter Platz enter through the windows, they collide and produce the walls of the Labyrinth. Why do we need statues, and why do we fill them with life? Together, this ensemble of works questions what desires and memories lie hidden in the monuments surrounding us. The Bull, The Girl + The Siegessäule is Aura Rosenberg’s first solo exhibition in Berlin for ten years.

Efremidis | Ernst-Reuter-Platz 2 | 10587 Berlin

@efremidisgallery

Aura Rosenberg lives in New York and Berlin. Her exhibitions include Martos Gallery, New York (2019); Bridget Donahue, New York (2019); Francesca Pia Gallery, Zurich (2019); Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2019); Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2017); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2016); Yale Union, Portland (2015); Forum d’art Contemporain, Luxembourg (2015); Centre d’art Contemporain, Grenoble (2014); Kienzle Foundation, Berlin (2014); Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia (2013), Gallery 3A, New York (2013); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main (2011); Swiss Institute, New York (2009); The Sculpture Center, Long Island City, (2008); Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2004); White Columns, New York (2003); MoMA PS1, New York (1999) and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1993).